Relationship Between Mental Health Education and Nurse Preparedness

This quantitative study was to see if there was a relationship between the type of Mental Health education undergraduate nurses received or the number of Mental Health clinical days they experienced and how prepared they were to care for Mental Health Consumers (MHCs) when they first were employed. This information had never before been studied, so had the potential to change nursing curriculum and provide better care for MHCs. An anonymous survey using the Behavioral Health Care Competency’s questions was used and an invitation to participate was placed on various nursing discussion forums and social media sites. Participants (n = 100) completed the surveys and the data was analyzed using Spearman’s Rank Correlation test. It showed no significant relationship between the type of education and preparedness, but it did show a significant positive relationship between the number of Mental Health clinical days and the self-perceived preparedness to care for MHCs. This study recommends that nursing students be provided with mental health clinical days and supplies new information for the body of knowledge. Future research should replicate this study with participants who have not been out of nursing school for more than five years and possibly with RNs from various hospitals. Also, finding an even number of participants with experience in the three types of education could validate these finding even more.